Persistent Illusion
by Sable Xane
Summary: Harry Potter's death was the source for great grief amongst those who knew and loved him, but he wasn't quite as dead as they thought. Countless years later an archeological team uncover a crypt and make a most unusual discovery. Slash Seph/HP
1. Prologue

**Persistent Illusion**

Sable Xane

**Rated M, **please use good sense as I did this for a reason

**Warnings: **_Slash_, het, sexual situations, **slash**, violence, yaoi/shonin ai, AU/AR situations, SLASH, adult themes, possibly infrequent updates, male on male relationships, vulgar language, anything else I happen to come up with, and _**SLASH!**_

You can't say you were not warned.

**Summery: **Harry Potter's death was the source for great grief amongst those who knew and loved him, but he wasn't quite as dead as they thought. Countless years later an archeological team uncover a crypt and make a most unusual discovery.

**A/N: **I have been suffering from writer's block for ages and I don't know how quickly this will update. Hopefully I will be able to keep on top of it. Since it has been so long since I have written anything feedback would be greatly appreciated.

**Prologue**

_The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion._  
-Albert Einstein

_2__nd__ May, 1998_

_Just after the final battle. _

Since they hadn't thought anyone would mind, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had simply slipped away into Gryffindor Tower. Ron and Hermione collapsed in front of the fire, which was still burning merrily in the grate, but Harry headed straight up to the dorm. Even after a year away it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Though his trunk was not there, his bed was right where it should be and he fell into happily, far more tired then he could ever express. The world around him simply drifted away and he knew nothing more.

It would take several hours before anyone realized something was wrong. There was such chaos within the school that no one even really thought to look for the trio. Ron and Hermione were roused from where they had fallen asleep on the couch and directed Professor McGonagall towards the dorms to find Harry. Upon first seeing Harry strewn across the bed, clothes and shoes still on, and on top of the covers, she couldn't help but to smile. He had saved them all yet again while facing impossible odds. There was absolutely no way that any of them could ever repay what he'd done for them.

She reach out to gently shake him awake, wondering how long it had been since any of the three had been to sleep in a proper bed. "Potter. Wake up." He was stiff under her touch, as though all his mussels has seized up. She shook him harder. "Potter, Harry, wake up!" He still did not stir. With a great heave she pushed him on to his back, only to stumble backwards. His face was chalky pale. She reached out to place a hand on his cheek and felt a sob catch in her throat. He was cold and his skin was stiff; he wasn't breathing.

It was just then that Ron and Hermione appeared in the doorway. "Having trouble waking him, Professor?" Ron asked with an amused tone. "He can be a bit of a heavy sleeper when the world isn't in danger…" Ron's voice trailed off as he got a good look at the scene before him.

"No… no, no, nonononono…" Hermione kept repeating the word as she rushed forward toward her friend. Ron stood frozen in the doorway even as Hermione pushed past McGonagall and began casting diagnostic charms over Harry's still form.

"Miss Granger, Miss Granger. HERMIONE! IT'S TOO LATE!" McGonagall's attempts to pull her away were useless. However, for once, Ron seemed to know just when to move and wrapped his arms around Hermione just as she gave in to the sobs that had been building in her throat even as she cast her spells.

They sat there, crying over their friend. Nether knew just how long it had been, but at some point McGonagall had either called an elf or fetched Madam Pomfrey. Several others came in following the matron and pulled the two of them away from Harry's still form.

Everything around them descended into confusion and all they could do was hold on to each other.

XXX

It took several days for the reality of the situation to set in. Somehow, after surviving the killing curse a second time and defeating the Dark Lord again, Harry had apparently succumbed to magical exhaustion. That was the only answer that anyone could really come up with.

His affairs were settled quickly, despite the fact that Harry didn't leave a will. Apparently the Potter family charter made provisions in case there was no heir and no will. Teddy was named heir since Harry was his godfather and Remus and Tonks were dead. Andromeda took possession of Teddy's trust vault key until Teddy turned eleven and started school.

Harry was buried with the few possessions that he cherished, plus those things, which Ron and Hermione knew, were better off disappearing, such as certain Hallows. They even went so far as to find the ring to make certain that it could not fall into the wrong hands. It was a painful time for them all. Ginny took things particularly hard and was inconsolable for a long time.

It took time for everything to settle down, but eventually they, even Ginny, resolved to let Harry rest in peace. It was only fair after all. It was something he had never known in life and he was finally with his family again.

Time moved along, as it is want to do. Teddy turned seventeen and went to Gringotts to claim his inheritance from his Godfather. The trouble was that Gringotts claimed that the inheritance was not eligible to be dispensed. This confused the goblins as much as Teddy, his grandmother, his Uncle Ron, and Aunt Hermione.

The first reaction for some might have been that Gringotts was holding a grudge over a certain break in that had occurred some sixteen years prior, but that was not the case. Under the circumstances the three had been pardoned for their actions. In fact, Gringotts had after made it a policy to destroy or eject any dark or malevolent object that entered the back without extenuating circumstances (such as someone wanting something kept out of the wrong hands until they could figure out how to destroy it). They refused to harbor such evil ever again.

The goblins worked tirelessly to discover the reason that they were unable to complete the inheritance ritual for young Teddy Lupin. As a final straw they, rather secretly, exhumed the body of one Harry Potter to make sure that it was, in fact, even him. What they found was inexplicable. Still cold and lifeless, Harry Potter's body was otherwise untouched by time and decay.

This of course, didn't answer any of their questions, but they decided not to rebury him next to his parents. His stone coffin was placed inside the single vault that had been used to consolidate all of his inheritance. Preservation charms were put in place and then the vault was sealed. The bank chose then to hand over accumulated interest, active investments, and physical properties that existed outside of the banks control to Teddy Lupin. They didn't specifically say that there was more to be had in way of inheritance, but until such time as they could figure out what was stopping the ritual, there was nothing else they could really do. The inheritance would follow the boy's line until someone was able to claim it.

However no one ever did claim the contents of that vault. It was completely forgotten after countless centuries. Eventually the world changed beyond recognition. The magical world was eventually found as individual power grew weaker, but appeared in more and more muggles. Some magical species died out, while others evolved beyond recognition.

The shifting of landmasses, natural disasters, and time eroded the world that once was until all that was left was a meager population of human with a deep connection to the planet and a new evolution of humans who were barely as powerful as a squib.

Then the calamity came. It fell from the sky and wreaked havoc until the ancient humans managed to seal her away. Again time passed until the Ancients were little more than legends.

Then, almost simultaneously, two expeditions were taking place.

One at the northern creator where they found what they believed to be an Ancient woman encased in mako crystal.

The second was on an island just off southeastern coast of the eastern continent. There they found what they believed to be a series of crypts. Most were rather uninteresting, containing only a few metal artifacts and coins, but one was more than they ever could have hoped for. Within that one crypt there was a wealth of perfectly preserved artifacts ranging from metal to wooden, paintings, and even texts. However what they were most excited about was a perfectly preserved body within a stone coffin.

Then Harry opened his eyes.

XXX

TBC


	2. Chapter 01

**Persistent Illusion**

Sable Xane

**Rated M, **please use good sense as I did this for a reason

**Disclaimer: **I do not recognize anything you may own. Wait a minute…

**Warnings: **_Slash_, het, sexual situations, **slash**, violence, yaoi/shonin ai, AU/AR situations, SLASH, adult themes, possibly infrequent updates, male on male relationships, vulgar language, anything else I happen to come up with, and _**SLASH!**_

You can't say you were not warned.

**Summery: **Harry Potter's death was the source for great grief amongst those who knew and loved him, but he wasn't quite as dead as they thought. Countless years later an archeological team uncover a crypt and make a most unusual discovery.

**A/N: **Thanks for the positive first reviews. It is nice to know that I haven't completely lost my touch. I don't like to leave prologues hanging very long, but please do not think that you will be getting daily updates. Even if I manage to update frequently, my life simply will not let that happen. As for the story cover, it is by the wonderful ShiroiChou. She does have a page here, but her story is inactive. You will find her artwork at deviantArt under that name as well.

Oh, and please for give the OC's that the beginning of this chapter, they were a necessary Evil.

**Chapter 01**

_You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die._  
-John Lennon

_23rd September, εуλ 1959_

Doctor Erik Etgar sat at his desk, grumbling about his favorite subject. Faremis Gast was his rival in just about every way imaginable. Erik thought it was monumentally unfair that Gast had so much _handed_ to him. In Erik's opinion, the man had no real talent or intelligence. The man hadn't done any research to back his hunch that there might be something of interest at the Northern Crater, yet he had a full expedition team headed there in just a few weeks based on a hunch.

It was that type of thing that kept the governments unstable. Next thing you knew and world would end up with a "corporate sponsor". Erik chuckled under his breath at his own cleaver, yet utterly ridiculous, thought.

Erik, on the other hand, had been working with survey teams for years trying to locate the lost relics of their ancestors. Even then he had a small team checking a claim about a small group of ruins on a small island off the southeastern in the Mideel chain. Chances were that it would end up as nothing more than another group of stone huts, but it was always worth a look.

He continued to grumble as he did his work and lost himself to his thoughts. So, he did not notice when his assistant/daughter entered his office. Jocea had to clear her throat several times to get his attention. He looked up with a cloudy expression that cleared only slightly when he saw who it was.

"We just got the preliminary report back from the Mideel site. You'll never guess," she said with obviously suppressed mirth.

"Stone huts?"

The effort it was taking to contain her grin grew by visible proportions. "Oh, a little more than that."

"Stone village?"

She couldn't help it, Jocea burst out laughing. She held out the report in her hand to her father. "See for yourself."

He huffed, but took the sheaf of paper. "Stone structure… high possibility for underground network… preliminary findings indicate…" He stopped reading and started over. "That can't be right." He looked up at Jocea's smiling face. "They need to run it again. The field equipment isn't that reliable and that is just not possible."

"They ran it four times and I ran it when the first samples came in. Radiometric dating puts the ruins firmly Pre-Shift."

Erik dropped the report to his desk. "Bu… how… not possi…" He felt decidedly light headed.

"I had the same reaction."

He looked again at his daughter. She was a beautiful woman, just like her mother had been. Rich, dark brown hair and eyes with a creamy skin tone. He'd had to run off workers on more than one expedition. His little girl was far too good for those rock hounds.

He shook his thoughts back to reality and forced his disbelief to take a hike. "I want to be on site in three days."

"Work order is already on the director's desk. We'll be there in two, with a full crew."

XXX

_29th September, εуλ 1959_

The first few days had been a tedium of digging, but Erik really couldn't be surprised over that. Anything that had managed to survive the Sift would have had to have been buried under quite a bit of earth and rock to come out even remotely intact. After all, cataclysmic continental realignment wasn't exactly a gentle affair. They knew that more than ninety percent of the world's population had been lost when the planet decided to rearrange itself almost over night. What survived of the Pre-Shift civilization had almost completely vanished in the more than six thousand years since. The period was a virtual unknown. The accuracy of what was known was highly debatable. After all, most of the scientific community insisted that any civilization capable of even half of the rumors, space exploration and such, would have been able to predict the Shift, and thus weather it far more intact.

His thoughts were interrupted by one of the workers shouting. He was out of his tent and across the site in a matter of seconds, quite a feat for his old bones. He didn't even have to ask what the call had been about when he got there. Most of what they had found thus far had been a rather disappointing collection of coins and other uninformative (boring) artifacts. He'd really been hoping for something, anything that might tell them more about the Pre-Shift world. At last, his hopes had been answered.

Within the rather large chamber was a sight beyond his wildest dreams. The room was completely intact. Artifacts even still stood on shelves. He sent the workers back out and called for Jocea and his other assistants to come down. He was hesitant to enter the space, because there were obviously objects of organic nature. Taking into account the potential age of these objects, even the slightest wrong move could cause them to crumble. Jocea came up behind him and her ragged intake of breath pulled him back into the moment.

"Electric lights only. Jocea and myself will enter first. I want a camera and gloves. You three get the workers to the next dig site and you four keep everyone else out, but be ready to help us if we need you." His calm and structured orders belied the nervousness that was trying to show itself.

When the others started to move and he had his requested items he took the first few halting steps into the chamber. Other than a scattering of small rubble that had not been cleared from the entrance, the room was merely a little dusty, but otherwise seemed to be untouched by time. Like the other chambers they'd found the door was on the adjacent wall and looked to be sealed from the outside. The first camera flashes reminded him to move forward so that Jocea could enter the room as well.

Jocea moved closely behind him, photographing everything as they inched forward. Fortunately, it appeared as though the wall they had broken through had been devoid of artifacts. The table just in front of them was another matter. It was stacked high with books, rolls of paper or perhaps parchment, and various other objects. What he noticed was lacking in the room were the excess of coins he'd been expecting. In fact, there were very few of them at all. He turned away from the table and scanned the room again.

Erik thought his heart had stopped for a moment. He'd not been able to see it from the hole in the wall, but on the far side of the chamber was a stone chest. He'd thought it was another draped table, but could see it was solid. If it was what he thought it was. "I think these were tombs."

Jocea's head snapped around when her father finally broke the silence. "What?" She followed his finger as he pointed off to the far wall. When they'd opened the previous chambers, they had initially dismissed the possibility of burial sites. They'd found no bones, monuments, markers, or any other indication of burial. If her father was right, then…

"We have to open it."

Erik went stiff. Since they'd arrived everything about this site had him shaking. It wasn't a feeling of ill omen or foreboding, but he was frightened. He was afraid that something would go wrong. This was more than he could have ever hopped for, and to find an intact sarcophagus as well… his hands began to tremble, but Jocea was right.

"Fulke, you and Aran get in here for a moment."

The two younger men came in with extreme care. A few quick instructions and Aran was gone and back again with hammer and chisel. The stone lid lifted up more easily than they had anticipated and Erik was left staring at a white linen shroud. It was totally unstained, which was odd beyond anything he had ever seen. His hopes dropped at the sight of it. There was no way that a body left to decay for that long had gone without staining the shroud.

After Jocea had taken several pictures he slowly lifted the cloth back and nearly fainted. _It has to be an artificial figure_, he thought to calm himself, because what was revealed was a face that could have been merely sleeping. Numerous objects had been tucked in around the form, he noted idly, but he was drawn again to that serene face. He let his fingers brush against a cheek and snatched his hand away. The skin had been pliant under his fingers. He pressed against the cheek again and it moved like flesh under his touch. Jocea was a deathly kind of silent behind him.

XXX

_27th October, εуλ 1959_

Word had come in from the Northern Crater that Gast had found the remains of an Ancient woman incased in mako crystal. Erik was not nearly as jealous as he might once have been over the upstart's find.

Erik had been back in his lab for almost two weeks, along with most of the contents of the excavation site. He'd left one of his lead assistants, Fulke, supervising the rest of the clean up work, with orders to notify him if they found anything else of significance. Not that he expected them to. They'd hit ground water and most of what was left of the ruins that deep was only semi regular blocks of stone and a few more of the strange coins.

Indeed, the Sleeper's chamber, as they had come to call it, was the only one that had contained more than those coins and worn metal artifacts. It was almost as if someone had stopped time within that one chamber and never restarted it. The paper and wooden objects had been far more intact than he might have first thought. Not that he could read any of it. The language was unlike anything he had ever seen. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if it was more than one as some of the books appeared different than others. He'd put Jocea in charge of the relics though.

He spent every spare moment studying the Sleeper. Medical examinations had shown that he was, in fact, human. The organs and other tissues were still moist even if cellular activity had ceased. It was as if the body had been put into a state of perfect suspended animation a mere second before death. He knew that the Sleeper hadn't had an easy life. The body was littered with scars and skeletal fractures, both healed and not.

It left him with an insane urge to pull out a Phoenix Down and pour it down the boy's throat, and once the thought occurred to him, he couldn't shake it. Expensive and sometimes hard to come by, the potion could pull anyone back from the brink of the death. Archeology in the field was not exactly the safest of occupations. Monsters, raiders, and unstable structures were just some of the things to be faced. It was how he'd lost his wife. Ever since he'd suffered the expense and kept a few on hand, unwilling to risk his daughter's life as well.

As he reentered the room he couldn't help but think how cold it was. They had taken extra pains to sterilize the room. The body was the only thing they kept there, most of the boy's naked form kept covered by a simple white sheet.

"If it works…" He mumbled to himself and then stopped hesitating. To him it seemed more than worth the chance. He tipped the small bottle up into the boy's mouth. The liquid met not resistance as it trickled down the lax throat.

A large part of him whispered that he was a fool and that it had been a waist of Gil, but there was still that small voice in the back of his mind that said maybe. As the second ticked by that voice grew weaker and weaker until…

"Huhh..hu…" the ragged sound of breathing rattled in his ears and Erik was certain that his heart had suddenly forgotten to beat.

The body was trembling fiercely with his efforts to draw breath after Gaia only knew how long without it. Eventually the chest settled into an even rhythm and a pair of the absolutely greenest eyes Erik had ever seen opened.

XXX

TBC


End file.
